Some kind of raid-temporal-shield would be nice. But I don't think they are gonna do important changes like this to the class until next expansion.

Right now mages are one of the worst class to bring to 10m, imho. Yeah, at the end of the tier we are top3 on damage meters but in the beginning (when dps matters) we weren't, not by far. I thought this tier of either rerolling to warlock (but didn't have enough gear) or quit game, let's see next tier...

Blaxter, Fire and Frost were quite strong in early MoP, then Arcane took lead in 5.1 with Fire close (sometimes even higher). In 5.2 we were bad for a total of 2 weeks before the bombs got buffed which returned us into a leading position and that's where we still are.

There is no "mages bad in the beginning" this expansion.

And yes, it is true that we bring lots of amazing personal utility and sometimes that makes us better than some classes which have raid-wide tools. That being said, I wouldn't mind seeing something put to good use for the benefit of the raid when 6.0 comes.

Raidbuffs <-> Utility.
We can only use 1 at a time. Its handy in 10mans, useless in 25's. 10mans usually got most buffs covered anyways.

Originally Posted by Omgponies

Hunters also seem to suffer from this, but their raid buff utility, as well as misdirections and pet taunts seem to make them more viable than us.

Misdirection is just a weaker version of tricks, and pet taunt.. It doesnt even work on bosses nor does it work on all the adds, and when it actually taunts, it dies in 2 seconds, resulting in a massive dps loss.

Trust me, hunters are in the same spot as mages, if not in a worse one.

We have blink, one of the best abilities in the game. We don't have any raid utility or CDs, but we probably have one of the best personal CDs in the game. Iceblock, greater invisibility, mirror images, blink, temporal shield/ice barrier, several forms of CC. If you've done heroic lei shen then you should already know how good we have it (double soaking, blinking through helms, temporal shielding pretty much every tstrike, helm, etc...). We are already top DPS by a huge margin if you look at raidbots top 100 10m heroic averages. Basically we have top DPS, amazing personals, and then you're suggesting raid wide CD/utility on top of that, lol. I think that's a little too much.

People already QQ about warlocks being near mandatory and OP because of their damage, raid utility, and personal CDs plus pets. A raid CD/utility for mages would throw us up there with warlocks, probably even worse.

You have to have very good RNG to get into there, as if you look at the logs of the top dps, you can see they have large crit% or they're geared/farming enough to abuse a mechanic in the fight, (and the raid lets them. Eg tunnel horridon)

A lot of the listed things you've got others can do as well. A speed boost is as good as blink for H Lei Shen, and a lot of other classes can double soak as well. Hunters, Spriests, Rogues, Paladins.
I will admit the CD on blink outdoes a lot of other forms of movement. However it is rarely needed vitally blink in quick succession.

And in current form, the CC we bring is hardly needed. Megeara adds possibly, however it is rare you need to CC anything in a fight these days.

Why do people always refer to top parses at end of season trying to reflect how progression was? At the first 2-3 weeks, where progression really counted, mages were one of the worst classes in 10m, because
a) low or unreliable dmg
b) no passive dmg reduction
c) no raid cds
Above to that, Arcane is the most immobile specc and rarely useable on any encounter in 10m (because in 10m more shit hits you/you have to handle per player than 25m), and in progression where your raid learns to execute a fight its even worse. Fire DPS largely depends on your crit% and your trinkets and if you can use bloodlust at the start. The only viable specc in progression was frost (for ToT), unless you got gear feeded for fire

I played frost up until 520 ilvl and 4 piece and still ranked through normals without abusing mechanics or tunnelling so that's not entirely true. I still have several top 100 ranks as fire also.

Nothing beats blink. Blinking out of shit/into stack points, blinking to kick shells if kicker can't reach it in time, blinking in to cc/interrupt/intercept, blinking into anima ring to break out tanks when melee can't, blinking out of cosmic barrages and taking no damage, etc etc etc. Nothing beats blink! lol

And hunters can only deterrence or waste their dps cd to double soak, spriests can only disperse, ret pally is melee and I'm pretty sure they can only bubble, and rogues can double soak but they are also melee.

I remember deep freezing marli's add back in normal, silencing marli, ring for heroic meg adds plus silencing stuns, and sometimes ring for heroic twin adds if they were ever aggroing to the healer. You are right, there aren't many situations where you are CC'ing, but when we do need it it's just as useful as most other ranged classes.

I'm just playing devil's advocate cause I am bored, lol. I'm all for more mage buffs.

Why do people always refer to top parses at end of season trying to reflect how progression was? At the first 2-3 weeks, where progression really counted, mages were one of the worst classes in 10m, because
a) low or unreliable dmg
b) no passive dmg reduction
c) no raid cds
Above to that, Arcane is the most immobile specc and rarely useable on any encounter in 10m (because in 10m more shit hits you/you have to handle per player than 25m), and in progression where your raid learns to execute a fight its even worse. Fire DPS largely depends on your crit% and your trinkets and if you can use bloodlust at the start. The only viable specc in progression was frost (for ToT), unless you got gear feeded for fire

We have 6-16% physical damage reduction from molten armor and I think we're also getting 15% DR on temporal shield next patch. We also have ice barrier and moonkins and spriests are losing their 15% DR next patch as well? After the first week of ToT, blizzard buffed NT pushing mages back on top so I'm not sure what you are talking about. If you weren't multidotting on horridon, council, and tortos you were doing it wrong. You only played fire if you had your 4 piece and at least 515 ilvl, preferably 520. Using bloodlust at the start affects everyone the same, not just mages.

Its used on one fight, and if your adds get hit, they are unfrozen immediately.

Blink I will agree is a very helpful spell, but from all the heroic fights I have done. Smokebomb, the Spriest/Moonkin and Elemental healing CDs and all those nifty raid dmg reducing, or extra healing spells are incredibly important/helpful. And mages are kinda like '...Im helping'

In 5.2 we were bad for a total of 2 weeks before the bombs got buffed which returned us into a leading position and that's where we still are.

There is no "mages bad in the beginning" this expansion.

I was talking only about 5.2, with heoric gear from previous tier (500-525 ilvl), mages were the worst ranged class by a huge difference. The bombs buff wasn't really important for fire/frost (for arcane probably, but that spec wasn't the good one for progression back then, imho)

Once I got gear I was again topping damage meters but I've already cleared almost all content of ToT when that happened. I'd prefer a class where at the beginning of a tier I can make a difference for progression.